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Deputy FBI Director Bongino Still in Limbo as Trump Fumes Over Epstein Case; More Than 700 Immigrants Held or Will Be Sent to Florida Everglades Facility; E.U. Warns That Its Trade With the U.S. Could Be Effectively Wiped Out if Trump Follows Through With 30 Percent Tariff Threat. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired July 14, 2025 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[13:30:35]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": As of this morning, sources tell CNN that leaders at the Department of Justice have not spoken to Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino since the middle of last week when he implied that he could no longer continue in his role as long as Attorney General Pam Bondi was there. Bongino didn't go into work on Friday after an apparent fallout with Bondi over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

President Trump has not only sided with Bondi, but is now telling his supporters to "not waste any time or energy on the Epstein case" while claiming on social media that the files were written by Democrats with absolutely zero evidence pointing the finger at former President Barack Obama among others. This has infuriated many in MAGA world, considering this is what top members of the administration had promised.

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DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Yeah, I'd be inclined to do the Epstein. I'd have no problem with it.

J.D. VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That is an important thing.

KASH PATEL, DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.

DAN BONGINO, DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: I'm not ever going to let this story go because of what I heard from a source about Bill Clinton on a plane with Jeffrey Epstein. I'm not letting it go ever, ever.

ALINA HABBA, INTERIM U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY: We have flight logs, we have information, names, that will come out.

PAM BONDI, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL: President Trump has given a very strong directive and that's going to be followed. BENNY JOHNSON, HOST OF "THE BENNY SHOW" PODCAST: Wow. OK. So --

BONDI: A lot of documents.

JOHNSON: Yeah. OK. All right. So people can expect actual movement on this? It's not just empty promises.

BONDI: Oh, Donald Trump doesn't make empty promises.

JOHNSON: Yeah. All right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's get some perspective from former FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Mike Feinberg. He says he was pressured to resign from the Bureau earlier this year after being singled out for his longstanding friendship with former FBI official Peter Strzok. Remember, Trump and allies have targeted Strzok who played a senior role in special counselors' Robert Mueller's investigation and to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Mike, thanks so much for being with us. It looks like your video just went off, but can you hear me? There he is. Can you hear me?

MIKE FEINBERG, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: Yes, I can. My apologies. We're experiencing a bit of weather here.

SANCHEZ: No worries. I'm glad that you're indoors and that our connection is secured. What's your reaction to the Department of Justice after promising to put out flight logs and client lists, et cetera, et cetera, their plan that they're not going to release any new documents on the matter of Jeffrey Epstein?

FEINBERG: This is another reason that when picking senior government officials, you really want to try and find sober-minded, pragmatic men and women who know better than to get ahead of facts before they've actually discovered anything. Patel, Bongino, and to a lesser extent, Bondi really spent, depending on how you time it, the past four to eight years, using every position they've held, to undermine the credibility of the Justice Department. It's not really a surprise now that their own base doesn't believe them when they make official statements.

SANCHEZ: Is it your view that these folks ran on promises to uncover this wide-ranging conspiracy that involved figures, including former presidents, and then when they took a closer look, there was no there, there, and now they're stuck with what their supporters see as a cover-up?

FEINBERG: Yeah. Look, this is the difficulty with fomenting conspiracy theories. It's very easy to build them up and tell people that they're not getting the whole truth from the government. But once you become a member of that government, it's very difficult to convince them that all of a sudden they can believe you. This problem facing the FBI and DOJ is entirely the making of Patel, Bongino and Bondi. SANCHEZ: Do you sympathize at all with the view that there was a significant amount of information around the Epstein case that would lead to skepticism about whether the public was getting the truth or not? There's a lot of skepticism about his death by suicide, about his connections to all sorts of world figures. So I think, naturally a lot of folks would have significant questions.

[13:35:00]

Are you saying that you don't think that this investigation was shaped in any way so as to suppress information or deceive the public?

FEINBERG: No, I don't think that. It's -- I was not in the New York field office when this investigation was going on, but the bureau rumor mill is a pretty efficient machine. And I generally didn't hear about investigations being influenced by political or media considerations. It -- I know some people have that point of view, it's a point of view that has been inculcated by people like Bongino, but I never saw anything like that and I certainly never heard any rumors or any sort of assertion, whatsoever, that this investigation was being slow walked or that there was a cover up of some sort, or that it wasn't being handled by the book.

SANCHEZ: There is also a question about the potential opportunity cost of having FBI agents ordered to work around the clock, so that the Attorney General could try to fulfill his promise to release more information. A lot of these agents were supposed to be working on national security matters. How much of the FBI's resources do you think have been dedicated to just reviewing this case?

FEINBERG: Much too much. For a good portion of the beginning of Patel and Bongino's reign, I was acting as the Special Agent in Charge of my own field office. And while I'm not going to get into specific details that have not yet become public, the fool's errands that we were regularly required to exert time on really took away from serious investigations. I'm talking about public corruption in white collar investigations, counter-terrorism plots, counter-intelligence schemes. There is this willingness to throw personnel, money and resources at whatever is catching the eye of the MAGA base right now, and that's not a way to run an investigative agency on which the public depends (ph).

SANCHEZ: When you allude to these fools' errands. I wonder and I noted that you didn't want to get into specifics, but I wonder, did that involve loyalty tests, so to speak?

FEINBERG: No, I'm not talking about loyalty tests. I'm talking about relatively baseless conspiracy theories, which individuals like Bongino have now spent years alleging that the government is covering up and being forced to scour files for things that we know aren't there. And I get there's going to be a certain amount of political pressure in any administration, but this was really to a degree I never saw under any other president or any other director or any other deputy director.

SANCHEZ: Wow. One last question, Mike. Do you think that the American public knows the truth about Jeffrey Epstein?

FEINBERG: Yeah, look, I think Jeffrey Epstein was a monster of a human being. I don't think anybody should lose sleep that he's no longer with us. But, a case was opened on him, admittedly, probably too late. It was investigated. He was arrested. He was imprisoned. He took his own life. And as far as I know, that's it. There is no reason other than the ability to score political points with the MAGA base that this should still even be talked about to this day.

SANCHEZ: Mike Feinberg, great to get your perspective. Thanks so much for being with us.

FEINBERG: Thanks for having me.

SANCHEZ: Coming up, President Trump said that it would house some of the most vicious people on the planet, but is that really the case? We have new details to share with you on the hundreds of migrants now in the controversial detention center in the Florida Everglades, known as Alligator Alcatraz.

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[13:43:39]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Significant new details about the controversial new Immigration Detention Center in the Florida Everglades. According to reporting from the Miami Herald and the Tampa Bay Times, more than 700 migrants are either currently detained at or scheduled to be sent to the facility nicknamed by Trump Alligator Alcatraz, and many of them do not have criminal records. They're listed as having only immigration violations. CNN's Rafael Romo is with us now. Rafael, what are you learning about this?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, you may remember at the beginning of the month, when President Donald Trump toured the Migrant Detention Facility in the Florida Everglades. He said that it would very soon house some of the most menacing migrants. He said some of the most vicious people on the planet. But a new report published Sunday suggests that may not be the case. Hundreds of immigrants with no criminal charges in the United States are being held at Alligator Alcatraz, according to an investigation by the Miami Herald and the Tampa Bay Times, which obtained records about the migrants being held there.

According to the report, Brianna, there are more than 250 people who are listed as having only immigration violations, but no criminal convictions, who are being held together with those accused and convicted of crimes. The report says only a third of the detainees have criminal convictions with charges that range from attempted murder to illegal re-entry into the United States, as well as traffic violations.

[13:45:00]

The information comes from a list of more than 700 migrants who are either already being held at the tent facility or are scheduled to be transferred there. Several elected officials and members of Congress had access to the Migrant Detention Center on Saturday for the first time since it opened earlier this month. This is what two of them had to say about the facility.

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REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, (D-FL): They should not put humans in cages in the middle of swamp land in the Everglades. It's outrageous, it's inhumane, it's unlawful.

REP. MAXWELL FROST, (D-FL): What is the hurricane plan? What is the plan with flooding? We want to see the medical unit. We want to see what the segregation unit looks like. We want to see where the law library is. We want to see all this and make sure that it's up to the standards of what a federal facility is.

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ROMO: And Brianna, Wasserman Schultz also said that migrants are packed into what she described as cages with 32 people inside each holding unit and only three toilets available. In an interview with NBC on Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem dismissed the claim, saying ICE Detention Centers are generally better than most county jails or federal prisons across the United States.

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KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Well, our detention centers at the federal level are held to a higher standard than most local or state centers, and even federal prisons. The standards are extremely high.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: One final point, Brianna, and this is rather important. After touring the detention center Saturday, Representative Darren Soto, a Democrat, said lawmakers also witness evidence of flooding, highlighting serious concerns of what could happen to detainees if there's severe weather during what forecasters say may be a very busy hurricane season. Brianna?

KEILAR: Rafael Romo, thank you so much for that. Coming up, the European Union warns that if President Trump's 30 percent tariff kicks in, trade with the U.S. could be wiped out. We'll have more on the potential impacts ahead.

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[13:51:47]

SANCHEZ: E.U. trade ministers are meeting today in Brussels to strategize a response to tariff threats from President Trump. The European Union is warning that trade with the U.S. could effectively be wiped out if President Trump makes good on his threat to slap a 30 percent tariff on goods imported from the bloc. Let's go to CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich, who is tracking this for us. The clock is ticking on these trade deals, Vanessa. Where do you think they stand right now?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, we're just three weeks away from that major escalation happening on August 1st. President Trump, though, just shortly -- short time ago, said in the Oval Office that he is open with talking to the European Union. In fact, he said that they're coming over that they'd like to talk, talking about the E.U. trade team. He did not specify who and when, but this is a little bit of the lines of communication opening, at the same time that we are in crunch time, right now, for these countries to try to make deals before these tariffs escalate.

As you mentioned, Trump said that on August 1st, the E.U. is going to be slapped with a 30 percent tariff. That's an increase from the 10 percent universal tariff currently on the European Union, our biggest collective trading partner, and that's in addition to all the other tariffs that the European Union is facing. Look at that, 50 percent on steel and aluminum, 25 percent on cars, and then you could see that escalation on the right-hand side of your screen there. The president has said that he is putting these major tariffs on our major trading partners because of the trade deficits that the U.S. has with other countries, including the European Union.

Take a look at these numbers. So the U.S. exports to the European Union, about $370 billion worth of goods, but we, the U.S. import about $605 billion worth. That means that the U.S. has a trade deficit of $235 billion. And they are such a major trading partner that 30 percent of global goods and services are traded between the United States and the European Union. And just look at the types of things that we get from the European Union. So we get pharmaceuticals. That includes, medical and surgical supplies, cars, aircrafts, machinery, chemicals, major, major goods that are important and absolutely critical to the U.S. and to the U.S. economy.

Now, interestingly enough though, the U.S. does have a trade surplus on the services ends of trade, we have a $563 billion worth of imports that the U.S. brings in from the United States. You're talking about intellectual property, telecommunications, financial services, digital services. So, we offer a lot to the European Union, and this is one of the ways that the E.U. could hit back if they wanted to, by putting tariffs on those services ends of our trade with the European Union.

Now, just yesterday, the European Union was going to go forth by slapping countermeasures on $25 billion worth of U.S. goods. They paused that and now, they're rediscussing what the countermeasures could look like.

[13:55:00]

There are reports in our CNN reporting that the countermeasures could now affect $84 billion worth of goods. That would be 22 percent of U.S. exports, coming out of the United States, going into the European Union. And Boris, of course, at the end of the day, it's a lot of the businesses on both sides of the pond that end up really suffering the financial burden of these tariffs because it's the businesses that pay the tariffs, then ultimately have to make the decision to pass it down to the U.S. consumer. So on paper, looking like things are escalating, but there are conversations certainly behind the scenes, between both sides about potentially how to deescalate. But right now, Boris, that August 1st date is just three weeks away for a major escalation on the European Union, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, the days just keep ticking by. Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you so much for that. Next, President Trump giving Russia a 50- day ultimatum. We'll walk through his demands when we come back.

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